The following is a blog I wrote for Extreme Love Ministries:
www.extremelove.com/alignment/
Have you ever thought of your life in terms of alignment? The need for your life to become properly
positioned? In different seasons of my
life, I will pray and ask God to “align” me, position me correctly in
relationship to Him and His will. It
seems like sometimes with the busyness and the wear and tear of life, I can
become mis-aligned and need a reminder to be aligned afresh with my Father God.
Recently I had about two months of down time. A disc had ruptured in my back and I was
unable to go about my normal daily duties.
Day after day, I would lay in bed or on the couch and just ask God to
“align me”. Align my back
physically with healing and health, and align me spiritually with His
purposes. Align me with His heart. Algin me, that I may be totally centered in
Him.
I have a metaphor in mind for alignment – many times our
cars need a wheel alignment. This is
part of standard automobile maintenance, that adjusts or squares, a car’s wheels
and axles with each other so that they’re moving in the same direction. This is so imperative in life, that we be
moving in the same direction that Holy Spirit is leading and guiding. I love being about my Father’s business,
squared up with Him.
A car needs to be
aligned typically every two-three years and this is so true of me. Periodically, I need to just steal away for
some undivided prayer focus or communion with God and check in and see if I am
correctly aligned. If what I have on my
plate is what is on His heart for me. If
I am seeking Him first above all others, etc.
Here are some common car signs that you are dealing with
poor alignment: Vehicle pulling to the left or right. Your steering wheel is
off center when driving straight.
Ha! I’m smiling because this week I was driving to into Phoenix and my SUV was strongly pulling me to the right. I had to keep two hands on the wheel and call my husband and ask him, "is our car out of alignment". His answer, "YES!" Smile! This can
be so true of our lives when we are misaligned.
I can feel a pull to other things, instead of focusing on what God has
put in front of me. I will “drive” along
through life and find that something is just “off”. My center, my core, where I am fully aligned
in Christ, just needs a little
attention.
Driving a vehicle with improper wheel alignment can cause
uneven wear on the tires. If your car's
alignment is bad, driving becomes more expensive and can even be
dangerous. A bad wheel alignment can be
dangerous because it may cause your car to pull or drift out of your lane or
hydroplane on wet pavement. And, uneven tire wear can lead to a blowout or make
you lose traction. Wow! Isn’t this a perfect metaphor of how it is
when we are out of alignment – we can have “expensive” life mistakes and even
cause harm to our own lives or those around us.
We can drift out of our lane that God has called us to and head into someone
else’s lane, which inevitably causes us to lose traction, momentum and purpose.
Practically what this
looks like for me, is just asking God to align me and position me rightly with
Him. I will protect my time with Him and
make it a priority, so I can hear from Him and give Him space to speak to me
and move in me. I will read my Bible and let Him highlight scripture and then I
will pray it back to Him. I will
worship, by faith believing that as I focus on Him, everything else will fall
into place. I will mentally go through
my daily routine and ask Holy Spirit to highlight anything that needs to go and
is not His will for my time commitments.
I will yield! This is a big part
of being aligned is yielding to the will of God and obeying what He is
speaking. I will ask Holy Spirit to speak to me what the Father is highlighting
and then I will listen to Him talk to me about those areas. Sometimes this process can take days or weeks,
as things fall into place in my heart and mind.
I am on high alert to the voice of the Lord in my every day life. There is an expectancy that He is going to
speak to me and that He is aligning me. When
I hear even a faint whisper, I take it to heart and begin to ask questions and
pray into what I am hearing. God is
faithful. He loves that our hearts are
turned to Him and He wants to speak to us.
When I am aligned, I call it the "cream and butter of heaven",
like Job mentions in Job 29:6. Some
translations say, cream and others say butter, referring to Job’s blessed
life. That place in God where you know
you are doing what He has called you too and there is a peace in being faithful
positioned. As we prepare to enter a new
year, maybe you, like me, need a new positioning and alignment so that you can
be fully focused, bearing much fruit for your Father’s glory!
